Disney Sweatshops

Those who track child labor sweatshops know the Mouse is a prime exploiter. The face of Disney the manufacturer is not a pretty one.[1] Using children to make Disney toys extends beyond [Thailand, Haiti, Burma] Vietnam and China.[2] (China is an attractive place for less-scrupulous companies to manufacture their products, says Simon Greenfield.[3])

Disney licensees…use child labor to cut costs. The Eden Group, a Disney licensee in Thailand that produces a whole line of Disney apparel called Mickey Mouse Americanwear, actually fired adult workers to bring on child laborers.[4] From the employer’s point of view, hiring children makes good economic sense. Children work for less money than adults. They are submissive and unlikely to organize or protest.[5]

For years Disney licensees were manufacturing in a country few Americans could locate on a map. Burma — also known as Myanmar, the name given it by the ruling military junta — is a poverty-stricken nation. Drug lords have a special status in Burma. They are protected by the government. The New York Times…editorialized: “For sheer nastiness few governments compete with Burma’s. It winks at heroin trafficking. It forces citizens to provide slave labor.” In other words, it’s a great place to make Mickey Mouse sweatshirts.[7] When human rights groups and labor organizations first discovered that Disney had links to Burma, they immediately launched a protest campaign.[8]

Disney…seems less than interested in tackling the child labor problem. Retailers and manufacturers have been asked by the U.S. Department of Labor to voluntarily pledge to monitor their contractors to make sure no child labor is being used. Dozens of well-known companies have joined, including Abercrombie and Fitch, Guess, Lands’ End, Lerner New York, Levi Strauss, Liz Claiborne, Nordstrom, Patagonia, Victoria’s Secret, the Limited, and others. Disney has not.[9]

[Said Senator Tom Harkin]: “The United States must not import any products made by child labor. Period.”[10] In America it took decades for activists, such as Jane Addams, Jacob Riis, Samuel Gompers, photographer Lewis Hine, and many, many others, to change the country’s attitude about working children. Finally a public outcry pushed the United States government to adopt strong labor laws that would protect the nation’s children.[11]